Meeting Fred Goldman

My husband, Jerry and I met Fred Goldman last night, sort of. I know I'm a very wet behind the ears blogger, but even with my very limited experience, I am fairly certain that I should be keeping to the theme of “working mom” type stuff, however, we had an experience last night that shook me to my inner core and I felt compelled to write about it instead. I can hear the feverish clicking of unsubscribing all over the land…

Last night, we had our sitter~ YEE HAW! Our ticket to freedom for just a few hours. She arrived about 5 pm and we went to a great dinner, and of course, the restaurant was practically empty because, really, who eats this early except senior citizens having the early bird special. So, after a quick dinner, we ponder, what are we going to do now…so we went to a place that we haven’t been in ages, the mall.

That too, was vacant. We were the only losers shopping on a Saturday night. We went into a large department store, where Jerry looked for shirts in the men’s section. “Can I help you find anything?” a voice asks. We look up to find Fred Goldman. For all you young’uns, he was of course, the father of Ronald Goldman, who if you remember, was Nicole Simpson’s friend who was brutally attacked and killed, when he brought her the sunglasses she left behind on the table at the restaurant where he worked.

This double murder happened on June 12, 1994. At that time, I was a 25 year old single girl, getting ready to go out barhopping with friends. We were on the phone gabbing about what bar we should start at and what we were wearing, oh and by the way, did you hear about OJ? When Nicole Simpson was murdered, her children were 8 and 5, the exact ages of my children now.

We recognized Fred Goldman immediately but we did not acknowledge this recognition, because his fame was associated with an enormous travesty, it seemed inappropriate to mention. It was sort of an unspoken we know who you are because of what happened to your son and he knew that we knew who he was for the same reason. I was so tempted to reach out and hug him and tell him how deeply sorry I was for the loss of his son and how completely unfair it all was. But I knew that I would sob my guts out in the middle of the store. So I didn’t.

We had a pleasant conversation for about 30 minutes, talking about everything. He was just Fred in the men’s section, not a person who was tragically affected by one of the most high profile murder cases in history. I was awestruck at how completely pleasant and kind he was after everything he has been through in his life. He lives every day knowing that the man who brutally murdered his son is alive, free and writing books. I can assure you I would be unfit to live in society.

When we got home, I kissed both of my slumbering kids on the cheeks and stared at them for longer than usual, thinking of Fred.